Tonight I would like to write about a shift in perspective I am experiencing, regarding traveling, fear, anger and life. I am beginning to more deeply understand that when I take a leap into the unknown, I purely am responsible and capable, to face and handle the fear that arises in the experience. Although in my mind I have known this was logical, the process of actually learning it has been another kind of road.
A little over one year ago, when I was preparing for this travel - the first such long travel I had made on my own, to places where the language and culture were unfamiliar - I made much planning and arrangements with my mind, imagination, and intellect. I felt much fear and anxiety, but I tried to use reason and intellect to handle these feelings. However, on the day of departure, when I was waiting at the gate for the flight, the travel shifted from plans into experiential reality, and within a short time all the fear and anxiety which I had tried to keep under control, arose and took over my body and mind. Yet in the depth of this fear, there was something even deeper which came forward and said, No, I must continue on. With this voice guiding me, I have kept on moving forward. However, I have been acting with some confusion, because one part of this voice came from the will to survive, while one part came from the willingness to trust.
In this confusion, each time when I would try to go further into the unknown, a part of me kept looking for some place or presence to catch me, a safe place to land, or a hand to guide me along the way. Time and again, when I could not find such safe place or compassionate understanding as what I expected, or when a seemingly safe place would transform like colors changing on the chameleon, I would experience anger, and the fear would also deepen and become stronger. Then anger would also arise when I found myself overwhelmed with the intensity of fear. With repetition and time, I felt more and more imprisoned in the avoidance of fear.
In many situations, I have directed the avoidance of fear, anger, doubt and disappointment at situations and persons, in whom I felt I had placed trust for a sense of safety, and with whom instead I experienced a sense of betrayal time and again. Yet, I understand more clearly now, that the trouble was not these situations or persons - rather, it was my avoidance of facing the fear that arises when I am going into a seemingly unfamiliar or otherwise undesirable experience.
It has been my responsibility to accept the experiences of the journey that I have chosen of my own will to travel upon. And even when I could not find the way to continue forward, it was not appropriate or deserving, to expect that help should come to me from elsewhere. There is so much of this life that only God and the soul can understand - not even the mind gets much clarity at times - how can I then wish, that any other being might know the way forward for me better even than myself? In this entire life, since before birth, I have looked for nurturance and love from a source outside myself, but from none of whom I was seeking, could I have ever received, if I could not yet find the openness for love within myself. Our Mother Earth offers us unconditional loving nurturance every moment, yet it is up to me individually to comprehend how to receive, experience and embody this. I pray that I may find moment by moment, the courage to love myself, to feel the vividness of fear, and leap joyfully again and again into the unknown.
To all who have experienced aggression from me, I wish that you may someday allow forgiveness for the pain to which I have contributed. I am thankful for your support, in the way that you were able to offer it. In my heart, I embrace you with loving-kindness and compassion, and wish you to be free and at peace.
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